Rough Shoulders

A late afternoon meeting that ended a bit early prompted me to take care of some pre-event duties Thursday evening.  Despite the fact that I'd been late to that meeting because of a sudden rainstorm, and subsequently ridden there in a light drizzle, I decided I'd take a chance on the LaPlace time trial course having escaped the scattered rain.  I needed to get out there and freshen up the road markings for the turnarounds, and this looked like a good opportunity for that.  So I picked up a couple of cans of road-marking paint, threw the bike into the car, and headed for I-10.  Of course by then it was right in the middle of rush hour, so it probably took me half an hour just to get to the interstate.  LaPlace isn't very far away, though, so I arrived at the TT start location a bit before 6 am.  This stretch of road (Hwy. 51) runs adjacent to and parallel to the elevated I-55, and although you'd think that the only people using it would be looking for a nice place to go fishing, at this time of day there were a few who were apparently trying to beat the I-55 traffic to Pontchatoula. Since I was by myself and the sky was overcast, I decided I'd better stick to the wide but bumpy shoulder.  It was not comfortable, however, and every now and then when there weren't any cars coming, I'd get back up onto the nice smooth asphalt that makes this route such a good time trial course.  On the way out I stopped at the start line and then at the 5k, 10k and 20k turnarounds to re-mark them, finally getting back to the car just before it started getting dark.  I can't say it was the most enjoyable ride I've done lately, but at least it's one more thing I can check off of the list for Sunday.

This morning I was actually a little surprised to find three other riders waiting for me on the levee.  Sometimes I end up riding solo on Fridays.  Today we had a nice little paceline in which each rider was taking pulls of two or three miles at steady speeds in the narrow range of 21-22 mph.  I stopped at Zotz afterward for a cup of dark roast.  I guess I'll be riding the Giro tomorrow morning, although it's looking like I might have to bail out a little early.  Then on Sunday I'll be working registration and results for the NOBC 2-Person Time Trial, and doing in a TT with Dennis in-between, assuming we aren't terribly short-handed.

The Thursday after Wednesday Night Worlds

It's thus far been a good week for training -- good weather, no big complications or time constraints, etc.  Of course, good weather and adequate training time come with a price. I'm a little tired.  Yesterday, being Wednesday, included both the usual morning training ride and the 6 pm Wednesday Night Worlds (WNW).  WNW is a generic term used across the country for local training races.  These are typically, shall we say, unsupervised.  It's up to the riders themselves to enforce some measure of order and safety using whatever means necessary.  Yesterday that meant Tim riding up alongside a strong, enthusiastic, but somewhat unpredictable clip-on aero-bar equipped rider and politely asking him to drop back because he was scaring the bejesus out of the riders behind him.  If this happens to you, don't take it personally.  We're out there suffering in anaerobic conditions, sharing the road with often unaware drivers rushing to get home from work, and the added complication of occasional erratic bike handling near the front of the group is best reserved for more sedate outings.  There were also a few riders on TT bikes, which frankly makes me a little nervous when things bunch up and I see them reaching for the brakes with 80% of their weight hovering over the front wheel.  There's a reason they seem to keep falling on their heads.  But I digress.....

So I arrived at the training race just a minute late, rounding the curve on Lakeshore Drive in time to see the group rolling out over the levee at UNO heading east.  No problem, though.  I just continued on and made a U-turn a couple of miles later when I saw them heading back my way.  I knew they'd be going fast, but I'm afraid I underestimated the speed differential this time.  Suddenly I heard wheels coming up on me really fast and had to jump with everything I had, going from 15 mph to 30 in about fifteen pedal strokes, merging into the middle of the group before the effort had really caught up with me.  I think the group had already temporarily split, but I was more focused on sucking in enough O₂ to catch up with the sudden ATP backlog before the next attack.

On the next lap a gap opened up and the group split with a few riders, maybe six or so?, forming a break.  The rest of the group was in complete disarray for the rest of the lap as the gap expanded to what must have been about a minute.  I, however, was in no mood to turn the training race into a social ride just because of such a small gap.  I was also in no mood to bridge up to the break at 30 mph, alone, even it that had been possible.  So I spent much of the next lap trying to keep the pace up and get our group more organized, which eventually paid off as a number of us finally got a reasonable paceline going.  The gap to the lead group seemed to be holding steady, and then somewhere on the third of four laps it started coming down.  That was probably because they were slowing down because we'd been holding a fairly steady pace that Strava showed as about a 25.5 mph average.  So with a bit under one lap to go it came back together, except that one or two ended up off the front, and stayed there. We had a nice but typically long sprint to the top of the levee, only about half of which I contested.

This morning I was feeling pretty dragged-out for the Thursday long levee ride, but fortunately the pace was mostly within reason.  If the weather holds out I'll probably try to make it out to the LaPlace time trial course this evening so I can ride the course with a paint can in my pocket and re-mark the course for 10, 20 and 40km time trials.  We're having our annual 2-person Time Trial on Sunday.

Toasted in Tuscaloosa

The Tour de Tuscaloosa up in Alabama has developed a reputation as a pretty tough early-season race. I'd only ridden it once before, in 2009.  The challenging criterium and road courses, however, were still firmly etched in my brain as I made the long drive with a number of rider from the Tulane team.  I wasn't expecting much of myself, results-wise, which was probably my first mistake.

The 35+ Masters criterium had only 33 riders, but there was a lot of horsepower on the starting line nonetheless.  A few of the names were ones I'd not normally expect to find in the masters race, which is probably more an indication of the depth of the Cat. 1/2 field than anything else.  The Tuscaloosa criterium course is a fairly long one that features a fast downhill down to the river and then a two-stage climb back up to the rest of the course. The race started out fast and a break went off the front right away.  I'd come to the race with few expectations and was looking at it more as a hard training ride than a race.  I probably shouldn't have done that.  So we were about halfway through the race when, as I was hanging out near the back of the field, that an attack on the climb opened a gap a couple of riders ahead of me.  I hesitated.  The rider ahead of me hesitated.  By the time we were back on level ground there was a 20-second gap and our race was basically over.  Luckily I was able to get together with the rider who had been ahead of me and we worked pretty smoothly together for the rest of the race, eventually catching a few riders on the final lap.  The best I can say is that I didn't get lapped and rolled across the line with an unimpressive 25th place.  In the Cat. 4 race I was glad to see Ben riding very aggressively and strongly at the front, even getting off in a 2-rider break for a few laps.  Unfortunately he got stuck back in the pack in the last laps and only managed a 12th place finish.

So Sunday morning I headed over to the road race course with Miko who was doing the Cat. 5 race. My own race didn't start until noon, so I had a lot of time to hang around and watch the Cat. 1/2/3s come through a couple of times.  The road course is one of those that really wears on you - lots of rolling hills along with a few strategically placed steep and/or long ones.  I was feeling marginally more competitive but was still lacking enough confidence to be much of a factor.  The first two laps of the 10-mile circuit seemed really fast with lots of attacks and counter-attacks.  I think we averaged 25 mph on one of those laps.  The end of each lap featured a fairly long and steep climb, and by the second time around I was seriously wondering what I'd gotten myself into.  I guess it was around the start of the third lap (we were doing five) when a break of about six got off the front.  I tacked onto the end of it at the last minute and stayed there for a couple of miles to see what would happen.  A few of the guys were definitely motivated to make a go of it, and when I looked back I could see that we had a huge gap on the rest of the rapidly disintegrating field, so I started taking pulls along with most of the others.  I'd say that most of the people in this break were about 75% committed to it, so although the pace would occasionally slacken, it was staying fast enough to be worthwhile.  After five or six miles the pace slowed down a bit and a number of riders who had been chasing finally bridged up to us. The field size was now up to maybe 12-14 riders and I was quite relieved that the next time up the finish line hill didn't feature any attacks.  This group rolled along for the next lap fairly smoothly and I was even able to ride tempo up the finish line hill in order to keep things a little under control.  Somewhere after the start of the last lap, I guess on the longish climb, the group split while I was looking at the scenery at the back.  I didn't even know that a break had gotten off the front until the gap was up to maybe 20 seconds.  I was frankly rather shocked because there hadn't been any significant response from the pack, but by that time there wasn't much I could do about it.  Apparently there were some team tactics afoot at the front, but at any rate the break of six or seven pulled away really quickly, splitting the group almost evenly in half. I was pretty satisfied anyway since the closest thing I'd had to a goal for the race was to finish with the pack.  When the predictable attack came on the finish climb, about 400 meters from the finish, I saw Donald kind of blow up and pretty much followed suit, letting the front five or six riders battle it out for the win and just riding smoothly to the finish in 13th place, which I was surprised to discover was still "in the money."  Somehow that $20 seemed surprisingly satisfying, though.  Meanwhile, Ben kind of saved the day with an impressive 2nd place finish in the Cat. 4 race coming out of a 2-rider break and time-trialing the last lap ahead of the pack.

A Whole Week

Things have been pretty busy, cycling-wise, since last Friday.  Alas, I'm still hopelessly behind in a number of areas, not the least of which is training.  Last weekend the Tulane cycling team organized and promoted its first collegiate race, the Green Wave Cycling Classic, and just to make sure they jumped into the deep end, it was a stage race.  By all accounts it went off quite well.  Nobody went to the hospital and nobody went to jail.  For me it was a whole weekend off the bike, and just to twist the knife, I didn't ride on Friday either (I think it was raining in the morning). I was officiating along with Ricky Dunn who came in from Monroe.  As stage races go, this one was pretty easy on the officials.  The organizer (Landon vomSteeg, who also didn't get to race) had his support crew pretty well organized and everything went off pretty much on time.  The only problem was that half of the riders waited until about fifteen minutes before registration closed to register, so the road races had to be pushed back by half an hour.  Compounding the delay was the fact that collegiate riders seem to change category practically at random and the SCCCC insists on trying to give them "permanent" race numbers each season.  Of course a number of them forgot their numbers, or gave me the wrong number, or upgraded and had to get new numbers in a different sequence.  I never did get a list of assigned bib numbers and rider license numbers from the conference, just a big box of numbers delivered by one of the Texas teams about half an hour after registration opened.  Anyway, the road races up at Enon went pretty well, results were clean and straightforward, and we arrived at the evening Time Trial site with plenty of time to spare.  There were just a couple of minor errors in the RR results, so all was good.  The TT was interesting in that probably half of the riders had never been held for a TT start, and the guy holding them, Landon, had never held riders for a TT start.  Fortunately none of them fell, although there were a couple of close calls.  The only problem with the TT was that a few riders were late for their starts.  One of them would, in all likelihood, have turned in one of the best times.  I sat on the tailgate of the Volvo after the race and put in all of the times, so after driving back across the lake and having a bite to eat at home, the day's results were up on the website by 8:30 or so.  Sunday's criterium on Lakeshore Drive went well too.  The first problem, though, was that the parking lot that was supposed to serve as part of the course was basically covered in crawfish heads from somebody's party the night before.  We made a little course change that worked out fine.  By the time the racing started there was a pretty strong east wind blowing that helped break up the fields.  It made for some hard rides, but easy judging.  Anyway, I'd have to call the event a success.

So by Monday I was ready to get back on the bike, and went out for an early solo ride on the levee.  The rest of the week was going smoothly, unless you count a whole bunch of LAMBRA/USAC race permitting drama, until we had to cancel the Wednesday night worlds out on the lakefront because of rain.  Thursday morning it was still rainy and wet, but the radar looked like it might give me a little break so I went out to the levee in the dark on the rain bike to see how lucky I would get.  I wasn't optimistic enough to leave the rain jacket at home, though.  I made it out past River Ridge before the rain started again and I had to stop to put the jacket on.  By the time I was halfway back it was pouring rain and I could see lightning up ahead.  I have to say, though, that if you're going to be riding in the rain, full fenders and Goretex are the way to go!  I was pretty comfortable, although of course my feet started getting a little cold toward the end.  Friday morning was another wash-out with thunderstorms in the morning.  I left home late hoping the worst would pass because the dogs were scared. The little one basically shakes and pants whenever there's thunder.  A minute after I left home, in the car, the sky opened up again and for a while I wondered if Broadway might be too flooded for me to get to work.  No such luck, though.  It still wasn't over, though, and rained all day and night.  Around 2 am this morning was a huge storm with constant thunder and lightning that kept me up for pretty much the rest of the night.  The dogs were pacing around the bed and scared for hours on end.  Needless to say, I didn't get to ride this morning.

Thursday night I made a last-minute decision to go up to Tuscaloosa for the Tour de Tuscaloosa.  I haven't ridden that one in a few years and am not expecting much, but I figure it will be good training because both the road and criterium courses are pretty challenging.

Back to the Lakefront

Yesterday saw the first of the annual "Wednesday Night Worlds," which is the nearly universal term for the local training races that happen all over the country.  I'd ridden the regular Wednesday morning levee ride, and was still feeling a little dragged out from Rouge-Roubaix and an apparently insufficient amount of recovery time.  Of course that didn't stop me from rushing home at 5 pm and jumping on the bike to ride out to Lakeshore Drive for the 6 pm start. This informal catch-all training race actually constitutes a significant portion of my training program (I use the term "program" extremely loosely), since it basically substitutes for the interval workouts that I never seem to be able to make myself do.  The weather was warm, and there was a pretty good east wind blowing out on the lakefront.  There's always a pretty good wind blowing on the lakefront.  I was glad to see a good turnout of 26 riders for this first Wednesday in DST.  The race started out fast, and then just got faster.  Once we came around the old Armory (which isn't actually there any more, thanks to Katrina) and got the wind to our backs, Woody went to the front and put the hammer down for what seemed like three miles.  I was second or third wheel at that point and pretty much on the rivet the whole time just trying to stay on a wheel.  We do four laps of the 6-mile circuit and I was planning on staying in the draft until at least the half-way point.  Eventually the pace eased up a little bit, but of course there continued to be painful surges and attacks, as is the nature of such a race.  The fun thing about a training race is that there's nothing at stake and you are free to try some things that you might never be bold enough to attempt in a real race.

I was surprised that my legs didn't feel all that bad and that I was at least able to survive the attacks without incident.  The hardest part for me was the tailwind stretch where the speed was consistently ramping up into the low 30s and the draft offers relatively little comfort. I let myself drift back in the shrinking group as we got into lap number three.  At some point a break of two or three went off the front on the last lap and although there was a brief effort to chase, all hope was lost within three miles or so. When the pace really started to lag I went ahead and took some pulls in order to keep things moving, and then ended up on the front again about a mile from the finish, so my legs were really toast by the time the sprint started.  It was dark by the time I got back home. I was glad I had my little taillight with me, but wishing I'd brought the headlight too. Average speed for the race was about 25 mph with a maximum of 36.8, despite the fact that I had not contested the sprint.  Ouch.

This morning was another damp, dark and foggy ride on the levee.  Woody, who was on his TT bike, and one or two others were soon driving the pace at the front.  Let me tell you, it can be a little frightening going 30 mph in the dark in a paceline on that narrow little strip of asphalt.  The flashing headlights shining on the butts of the riders in front of me made it all that more difficult to see anything  up the road, so basically you're six inches from the wheel in front of you, and that wheel is basically all you can see.  It requires a lot of faith, somewhat more than half of the group had.  Eventually a gap opened and three riders rolled away, which finally brought our pace down by a notch or so.  After they turned around at the little dip, the rest of us continued on to Ormond.  I was really starting to feel the effects of the past five days and by the time we were headed back I was just taking occasional short pulls.  I kept telling myself it was OK, however, because I won't get to ride at all this weekend.  I'll be officiating a collegiate race which will no doubt be a little on the chaotic side.  Collegiate racing has some twists to it that really make officiating and scoring more difficult than usual.  For example, depending on category there is a required number of points primes for criteriums, and they need to be scored four-deep.  For some of the races it will probably work out to something like a sprint every third lap, making it more like a points race than a criterium.  Should be interesting.....

Dark and Foggy



Almost finished as the fog clears.

I was up late last night getting the updated version (i.e. the version with finish times) of the Rouge-Roubaix results formatted and posted to the LAMBRA website.  It usually works out that way.  Ricky, the Chief Ref., plugs in all of the finish times in the evening a day or two after the race, which he then sends to me around 10:30 pm.  Looking them over, I noticed that the Master's race was a good ten minutes faster than last year, despite the wind and slack mid-race pace.  My own time was about four minutes slower than last year, but my overall Masters placing went from 3rd to 12th, so basically some of these old guys must be getting faster!  There's a nice video taken from within the Masters race, and at about 3:15 it shows the split on the dirt road that established the front group.  I'm the last rider to make it across.  It's amazing how fast that gap opened!  If I'd hesitated another two seconds I don't think I would have made it across.

Anyway, it rained Monday morning, which was just as well because my legs were pretty sore.  Then, on Tuesday, I did the long levee ride with still-sore legs, flatted halfway back (it was wet), and rode the rest of the way pretty easy.  This morning the legs were feeling significantly better, but still had that lingering stiffness that reminds you of the weekend.  Unfortunately it was so foggy outside, and unexpectedly dark because of the fog, that I overslept a bit and missed the group by at least five minutes.  Not a big deal, though, since it's not like I don't already get enough group rides.  So I settled into a comfortable 20 mph pace and rode up the river until I saw the group on its way back.  It was a small turnout today, with everyone taking really long, steady pulls.  The only problem was the combination of darkness and fog for the first ten miles or so.

This evening is the start of the informal Wednesday Night Worlds training races out at the lakefront.  I'm hoping I'll be able to make it out there for a little hammerfest before dinner.

Travel to the Gravel - Rouge-Roubaix #14

The weather forecasts all week had been all over the map, and mostly wrong.  On Tuesday the outlook was dismal - 100% chance of rain.  Each day the forecast looked just a little bit better and by Friday a 30% chance of rain was looking quite encouraging.  Even so, the prospect of riding dirt and gravel roads in the rain, not to mention the rest of the 104 mile race, probably kept a number of people on the sidelines this year.  So naturally I signed up for the 14th annual Rouge-Roubaix along with a bunch of other club members.  The night before the race I put on my "Six Gap" 12-27 cassette, looked at the old battle-scarred Michelin Pro Race tire on my race wheel and decided to swap it out for a new, but heavier, Vredestein that I had been planning to put on my training wheel. The only other consideration was the higher than normal chance of pinch-flats.  That would require some compromise.  Rather than risk a flat, I put about 125 psi in each tire - quite a bit more than I'd normally use.  I knew it would make for some discomfort on the rough stuff, but the availability of a fast wheel change is not guaranteed in this race, especially if you're off the back.

So at 4:45 am Brian, Mignon and I headed for St. Francisville, giving ourselves just enough time to make it there before packet pickup ended at 7:00.  The weather was looking encouraging, and even though we got a little sprinkle of rain around Baton Rouge, it seemed like the tropical deluge that had predicted earlier in the week was completely out of the question.  The turnout looked pretty close to normal; perhaps down about 10% because of the weather.  I was riding the combined Master 40+, 55+, Women's group.  Although I had initially thought I'd wear arm-warmers, but the time we were ready to line up it was warm enough for just shorts and jersey.

The masters race started out fast with a moderate tailwind, and over the first fifteen miles or so I wondered who was up there driving the pace like that. I was trying to stay reasonably close to the front, but was definitely not interested in doing any more work than necessary so early in the game.  As we approached the first section of gravel road, around 25 miles into the race, I moved up closer to the front, coming around the right-hand turn off of the asphalt at about fifth wheel.  That was perfect.  The gravel was big and pretty lose at first but surprisingly the pace remained fairly steady with the speed somewhere in the low to mid-20s. After the first mile on the gravel the pace started to ratchet up a bit and I noticed the rider in front of me starting to let a little gap open.  When the gap got to about four bike lengths I knew it was time to go around, which is easier said than done on a gravel road.  I think two of us made it across that gap as the pace continued to ramp up.  Soon I could hear only one bike behind me.  Ahead was a string of about a dozen riders.  The last mile or two of this section has some hills that hurt a bit, but at that point there was no way I was going to let this group get away from me.  When we emerged back onto the asphalt I thought we would quickly organize into a nice paceline, but it wasn't happening.  I looked around and counted only about a dozen.  Behind us I could not see anybody close.  It soon became clear that about half of the group was not interested in working.  The really strong riders didn't really care if we stayed away or got caught since they were going to shatter whatever group they were with when we hit the second gravel segment at 67 miles anyway. So for the most part there were four or five in our group who were trying to keep the pace high enough to keep from getting caught by the next group. None of this was really the best-case scenario for me.  Quite the opposite, in fact.  The ideal thing for me is to be in a big group at the front and to have a couple of teams working the front trying to wear each other down.  Anyway, I did a lot more work than usual over the next 30 or 40 miles and by the time we were nearing the second gravel section I had pretty much decided I was going to get dropped on the initial 1 km climb.  I uncharacteristically let myself drift toward the back of the group, already running a little low on motivation. 


Alone at the end of the second gravel segment.

As we started the climb the front few riders exploded up the slope in search of the $100 bill waiting at the top.  I took it quite a bit easier, coming over the top about dead last, I think.  I knew that most o the group would shatter and was hoping I'd be able to get together with a couple of riders once we were back on pavement.  The one thing I wasn't counting on was a deep sand pit at the bottom of one of the downhills.  I have no idea how people were actually riding through that thing, but when I hit it my bike just basically came to a stop and I had to hike out of the deep stuff back to terra firma.  By then I could no longer see the rest of the group, so I just tried to keep up a reasonable pace.

Back on asphalt again, I passed the Pond Store made the next turn, and looked up the road.  I could see a group with a follow car about 45 seconds, maybe a minute, ahead.  If that group took a little break and slowed down, there was still a chance I might get back in the race, so I put my head down and started time-trialing.  Every now and then I'd check my progress.  For a long time I seemed to be holding the gap, but just could not seem to bring it down. After a few miles of that it seemed that suddenly the group just took off and disappeared.  I learned later that Donad Davis and I think one or two others had been off the front since the gravel section and I guess the group was not ready to throw in the towel.  Anyway, I finally had to back it down to something I could sustain since there were still nearly 30 miles left to go.  After a while I could see a lone rider up ahead.  I eventually caught him and we worked together for a couple of miles until he said he had to back off and sat up.  We were just a mile or so from the last gravel section and I was alone again.

The last gravel section has a really steep short climb right at the beginning.  By then I was running very low on motivation, so I rode most of the way up until my front wheel started to get hard to control, and then just walked up the rest of the way. There are a couple more good climbs on this section and it's actually kind fun.  The last 15 or 20 miles of this race always feel like the worst.  To make matters worse, there was now a pretty strong headwind.  I guess my speed was down to around 19 mph along here and I was already starting to feel some twinges in my right calf and left hamstring.  I guess I was around ten miles from the end when I looked back and saw a little group of three riders.  This was a good thing.  I eased up and waited for them to catch.  They were all in the 40+ race and I think had been in my original group.  I figured there were only a couple of 55+ riders ahead, and that we were probably the tail end of what was left of that original group of 12-14 riders.  I merged into the paceline with Scott Gurganus and the other two riders.  One of the guys was obviously suffering and would eventually drop off on one of the last little climbs.  With a couple of miles to go, Scott surged hard on a hill and we all came apart. As we approached the last turn, just after the 1 km to go sign, I noticed that I was suddenly gaining on the rider in front of me.  I probably could have made a big effort and passed him about 200 meters from the line, but when he looked back and saw me closing in he put his head down and accelerated and I just couldn't come around him like that.  I must be getting soft in my old age.  Anyway, I ended up 3rd in the 55+ race and 12th in the combined masters race, which I was pretty satisfied with, considering.  A bunch of photos are on the Rouge-Roubaix Facebook page.  To find out what the Cat. 1/2 race was from someone who was at the front of it the whole time, check out Brian Toone's blog.

Morning Routine

There won't be a ride for me this morning.  It's been raining off and on and I have an early meeting, so options are pretty limited. It's just as well. I don't want any hint of sore legs for Sunday's ride. So I walk the dogs, make some coffee, and sit out on the front porch to survey my little corner of the world. 

To the right, one neighbor has the garden hose out, washing off the oak flowers that have covered his car as he smokes a cigarette.  A few minutes later he hops into the car and heads off to work across the river where he's a nurse.  Across the street, the guy who moved into the lower apartment steps out, backpack, running shoes in hand, and drives off.  He's a doctor, a Resident, I'd imagine. As he's leaving a car pulls up next to the house.  There are a couple of school-age kids in it, and mom idles the car as they sit there.  I've seen them before and know they are waiting for the school bus to arrive.  Over to the left another neighbor emerges.  He's wearing scrubs and has his Timbuktu bag over his shoulder.  He hoses the oak flowers off the car and leaves shortly before his partner comes out to walk one of their two dogs.  A guy on a bike, probably a student, comes down the street and turns onto South Claiborne where traffic is starting to back up at the stoplight.  I hear the commotion next door as the neighbor loads her kids into the minivan and heads off to Lusher school. The neighbor to the left, the partner of the one who left wearing his scrubs, comes out with the boy they adopted a couple of years ago and they drive off to school and work as an RTA minivan drops off an older neighbor at her house.  Just now, a few houses down, a mom and her daughter walk to their car.  The daughter is wearing her school uniform - one of the local catholic schools.  I finally glance at my watch. The rain has stopped for the moment and I'm hopeful I'll be able to ride over to Tulane since parking will be impossible.  I'm meeting some folks from Baton Rouge (and the Netherlands) for a brief visit with a few faculty and the president about coastal and water research.  Another morning on Neron Place.....

Change

There was a big group this morning for the last long Thursday morning ride before the change to DST on Sunday plunges the 6:15 am start time back in to darkness.  It was warm and humid with a relentless east southeast wind, and I commented to someone at the start, "Best be sure to save something for the way back."  Although there was certainly adequate horsepower in the group to make for one of those really fast rides, I think some riders were holding back a bit today.  No doubt that's because of next Sunday's annual Rouge-Roubaix race through the untamed thoroughfares of the Felicianas.  The considerable threat of rain for that race has a lot of people talking; some about equipment choices; others about bailing out altogether.  Well, I'll be there one way or the other.  On the plus side, it won't be particularly cold.  On the minus side, 100+ miles on wet roads that include long unpaved stretches have me thinking about using my slightly heavier training tires rather than the Michelin Pro tires that I'd otherwise use. Frankly, the bigger consideration for me is to avoid cutting up my good tires, not whether or not I actually puncture.  At any rate, I don't think I've ever done this race when there was significant rain, and from all indications thus far, there will certainly be significant rain before the race, and probably during it as well.  It will require some compromises and probably a bit of an attitude adjustment.

Anyway, today's ride was pretty good.  The pace was fast enough without ever getting really out of hand (not that Howard didn't try), and even included some brief entertainment at the turnaround where there was some sort of "discussion" between Mike W. and Jeff, the details of which I never did quite get.  The ride out there had benefited from a fair amount of tailwind, which of course meant that the ride back suffered from an equal and opposite wind.  I had feared that most of the ride back would be in a strong crosswind, but fortunately the direction was such that there was usually some draft still to be had, even at the back where I spent a good amount of time.

Here at work I've been watching the demolition of part of the old Uptown Square shopping center, the other part of which houses my office.  Tulane doesn't own that part of the old shopping center, and it is being demolished in order to make room for an expansion of Lambeth House. It's a little sad to see it go.  Back in the mid to late 70s and even into the mid-80s Uptown Square was an interesting and unique little shopping center that housed a lot of locally owned shops.  I have a lot of fond memories of Christmas shopping there and really liked being able to avoid having to battle the holiday traffic in order to go out to the big shopping mall in Metairie.  I remember doing all of our Christmas shopping by bicycle for a few years.  Unfortunately things there started to fall apart and one by one the shops moved to other nearby locations in Carrollton and along Magazine Street and Tchoupitoulas.  Well, things change and this is one of them.

Now if that weather forecast for Sunday would just continue to change, that would be really nice!

On the Levee

I was back to the levee routine again this week, unless you count yesterday when I got out late after dropping The Wife off at the airport.  I suppose it was good for me to do a solo ride anyway, even through a stiff wind made the ride home more work than play, and the timing required a somewhat shorter ride than usual for a Tuesday morning.  It was like that again this morning -- the wind, I mean.  I arrived atop the levee on time and our small group of four headed out with a light tailwind.  It was warm enough for just shorts and a jersey, although I chose a long-sleeved jersey to help buffer those occasional blasts of river-cooled air one gets on the bike path.  The wind direction made our trip upriver feel easy, and although nobody was pushing the pace today I knew it would be harder coming back.

After the turnaround we crossed paths with a trio of Tulane riders, and then much later we saw another two up ahead.  They were going pretty hard and I figured they might be doing interval sets.  As we got a little closer Jay started pushing the pace to catch them, and when they finally eased up we caught and they latched onto the group.  A couple of minutes later they took off again and as they went past Jay stood up and accelerated. It wasn't long before they backed off again, however, and everything came back together.

So people are starting to worry about next Sunday's Rouge-Roubaix, mainly because the weather forecast is presently calling for a lot of rain, and not just on race day, but also on the day before.  That should make the dirt and gravel road sections a bit more interesting.  It's still a little early to make any decisions, but if it looks like we'll be in the rain for 100+ miles I may be going with the heavier training tires to reduce the probability of puncturing a little bit.  At least it doesn't look like it will be cold.  I can handle cold and I can handle wet, but wet and cold together can be a big problem. Some Baton Rouge guys just put a Saturday evening criterium series on the calendar.  No details yet, but that might offer something different.

Training Camp Weekend

The head cold was threatening to become a sinus infection as I packed up the car Friday evening.  At least the task at hand was distracting me from the dull ache in the right side of my head.  I met Mark, Mignon and Chuck at 6:00, and after a quick stop at Starbucks we hit the road for the drive up to Natchez State Park for the annual NOBC training camp.  I suppose it's really about half training camp and half "retreat." 

Whatever, I was looking forward to a couple of days of cycling immersion in the country.  In addition to my bike and pretty much every item of cycling clothing I owned, I had some cookies, bananas, granola bars, coffee, wine, and various other random items packed into a couple of grocery store bags.  The closer we got, the worse the weather became.  This was actually a good thing, because as long as the approaching cold front moved through overnight, I knew Saturday morning would be OK.  We drove though a few sections with horizontal rain, arriving at the cabins around 10 pm or so just before it started raining again.  I had a glass of wine and promptly fell asleep on the couch, that would be doubling as my bed, in the middle of a conversation with Pat and Mark.  It rained most of the night, but in the early hours of Saturday the temperature started dropping and the rain stopped.

We had 16 or 17 riders for Saturday's ride. Considering the fact that I'd been sick most of the week and taking into account the cloudy sky and chilly north wind, I dressed extra warmly.  I guess it was in the mid-40s when we started around 9 am.  The plan was to keep everything together for the first 15 miles or so, and then split in to two groups. After we split, the pace picked up and although I was keeping my pulls rather short, I was feeling surprisingly good.  The Natchez Trace is a very deceiving road.  The whole thing is so evenly graded that you never really feel the transition from flat to uphill or vice-versa, and although the gradients aren't very steep, they tend to be really long - much longer than one would normally encounter in that area.  Anyway, we hit the store at the turnaround for a little while and then headed back, waving to the other group that was trailing us by five or ten minutes. 

With a little tailwind for the return trip the pace kept clicking up a notch every five miles or so, and around halfway back our group split on one of those long climbs.  I guess we were down to five or so, mostly taking long pulls and keeping the pressure on. By the time we were five or six miles from the road back to the state park we were down to just Robert, Chuck and me.  My quads were starting to hurt on the climbs. 

I heard my phone ring as I was struggling to hold Chuck's wheel up one of them, and didn't answer it.  On the next climb Chuck and Robert started attacking each other and a big gap opened in front of me.  As I was contemplating whether to chase or just back off for the remaining few miles, the phone rang again.  Bad sign.  I sat up and pulled it out, and saw it was Mark calling.  He told me that they were going to need extraction because Isaac had broken his carbon steerer and crashed.  Fortunately he didn't seem to be hurt badly. 

I caught up with the others when they eased up at the turn and we hurried back the last three or four miles to the cabins so I could change shoes and jump into the car, passing the 2nd group as I left the park.  I must have driven twenty miles before I finally spotted the group walking along the shoulder.  Mignon, Isaac's mother, was carrying his broken bike.  So we threw the bike inside and I drove back with Isaac and Mignon.  The fork's steerer looked like it had broken about halfway between the stem and the crown.  Very odd. Anyway, we were lucky nobody had been seriously hurt.

That evening the Monahan's cooked up a big dinner while coach Bob gave us a presentation on coaching and training principles (lots of charts and graphs of power, heart rate, mileage, etc.).  Afterward we watched Chasing Legends once again.

So Sunday morning we had a slightly smaller group on hand for a shorter 20 mile ride down into Natchez for a coffee stop.  Isaac borrowed Bob's mountain bike for the ride, which was great since otherwise I'm not sure what he'd have done while we were out riding.  There was a pretty good headwind building up by the time we headed out, and the group split pretty quickly leaving six of us to put in a few miles of good training up front.  Brooks was taking some really long hard pulls, Robert was pushing the speed up the hills, and I was trying to take short enough pulls to keep from getting dropped.  The weather was spectacular and I was finally feeling like I was getting over the head cold.  After a long stop at the Natchez Coffee Company, we made a loop down the bluff to the river while I told stories about the old Natchez Classic stage race, most of which were true.  Then we headed back onto the trace for a tailwind enhanced ride back to the park.  Naturally the same group went off the front right away and we had a good fast ride all the way back. My legs were feeling pretty sore by the time we arrived at the cabins.  It was a really fun weekend and I was impressed how fit some of the riders are so early in the season.

Slow Recovery

This head cold has really been hanging on.  Here it is, Thursday, and my upper respiratory tract still feels kind of raw, I can't take a deep breath without opening my mouth, my eyes burn, etc., etc.  I'm sitting here debating whether to pop another couple of tabs of pseudoephedrine and Advil, which I haven't done since late last night. I guess I'm still recovering, however slowly, from this thing but it's incredible frustrating right now.  This is precisely the week when I should be adding some significant intensity to my otherwise routine training. Instead, I'll have a really low-mileage, low-intensity week.

It was warm this morning, as in shorts and jersey warm, and there was a pretty big group up on the levee for the early ride.  It's been nice being able to start the Tuesday and Thursday rides with enough light to see, but unfortunately that will all change March 11 when we move to daylight savings time.  For those of us who ride mostly in the mornings, all that saved daylight doesn't really do us much good.  It'll be dark again for those early rides.  I hate that.  Anyway, not wanting to push my luck and risk interrupting this slow recovery from whatever virus I've been fighting this week, I decided I'd just do the shorter ride out to the parish line and back today.  Riding near the end of the paceline I was kept busy dealing with the surges and slowdowns that always happen back there, all the while trying to keep a little distance between myself and the somewhat unpredictable mishmash of wheels ahead of me.  Of course, at one point the pace shot up suddenly and, of course, that was because Howard had surged up at the front.  That set up a little counter-surge that opened another gap once that one had been closed.  I just tried to keep it steady so the paceline wouldn't shatter completely since the pace hadn't gotten completely out of hand.

I was glad to find some company on the way back, first picking up David and later Mignon, which made for a nice little paceline at a respectable speed as we rode back downriver into a little headwind.  The annual NOBC training camp is this weekend, so I'm hoping I am more or less fully recovered by then because the weather is supposed to be turning a bit colder. Hopefully I can find some time today and tonight to get the Team Time Trial event permit, which is already late, all taken care of. I also need to put the Mercury logo on the LAMBRA site since they are giving us some sponsorship, in the form of expensive wheels, for our soon-to-be-announced LAMBRA Championship Series in which the upper category riders will be able to accumulate points at the road, time trial and criterium championships.